Priorities
by mosylu
Summary: Caitlin had her wedding day all planned out, once. It wasn't meant to be in a park in the middle of the day. But that's okay. She can do this impromptu thing. Totally. AKA How and why Caitlin pulled out The Dress when Ronnie's in sneakers.


(A/N) So after the spoiler photos from the finale came out, I posted to Tumblr: "I actually find it hilarious that everyone's super-cazh in those photos, like they just came from saving the world or getting burgers or some shit, and Caitlin's like, "FUCK THIS, DON'T CARE, I'M PUTTING ON THE DRESS BITCHES."

Then I started thinking about how that would play out. Because you know that is not a throw-it-on-and-out-the-door look she's got going on there.

Then I started thinking about how she's basically got nobody of her very, very own there (poor lambkin), and how weddings really are a thing and honestly I don't know what happened, all of a sudden I had words.

And because it's me, this turned into less of a Snowstorm story and more of a story that wouldn't have been out of place during Flash Ladies Week.

Also, I know Clarissa Stein wasn't in the photos. FUCK THIS, DON'T CARE, WANT HER THERE BITCHES.

* * *

It was Ronnie's idea. "Marry me," he said to Caitlin in the aftermath of all the excitement.

"We did this already, remember? The falls?"

"I mean now."

"Right now?"

"Right now, today, here! It's only a year late, right?"

Clarissa had an idea how amped up the younger man was. After separating from him, Martin had pulled her behind a tree and kissed her in a way he hadn't for quite a long time, even before the particle accelerator explosion.

"Martin can do it for us! You'll do it for us, right, Marty?"

Martin gave him a withering look - "He just won't stop with the Marty, dear," he'd complained on one phone call, and she'd responded, "Do you still call him Ronald?" and he hadn't had an answer for that.

"C'mon," Ronnie said. "Please? _Please?_"

"Are you sure this is the place, Ronald?" Martin said rather stiffly, and Clarissa tweaked his ear, their signal for "you're being a stuffed shirt, darling." He glanced at her, his mouth twitching, and then said, "Very well. I would be pleased to officiate."

"See," Ronnie said to Caitlin.

She stared at him, wide-eyed.

"Caitlin," he said. "Cait. In half an hour, we could be married. Finally."

"Okay," she said. "Okay. Just - I need to brush my hair, okay? Ten minutes. Five." She cast a wild look around and squeaked, "Iris!"

The two young women fled, and Clarissa followed. She found Caitlin in the bathroom, whipping a brush through her hair as if she were trying to create lightning with static electricity, a frown line between her eyes.

"How are you doing?"

"I'm almost done," Caitlin said. "Tell Ronnie I'll be right there."

Iris West, hovering around Caitlin's elbow, bit her lip and held up the barrette that Caitlin had been wearing. "Maybe if we parted it on the side. God, if I just had a curling iron!"

Clarissa studied the younger woman's face in the mirror. They'd had semi-weekly coffee dates ever since Martin had left with Ronnie, and she knew a lot of what went on inside Caitlin Snow's busy brain. Caitlin had let a number of things spill that she probably hadn't told anyone else. Clarissa put it down to being surrounded by men ninety-eight percent of the time. Barry and Cisco were nice boys, but it was a different thing.

She started to lean against the sink, then thought better of it. The whole place was dingy, lit with fluorescent lights, and with the faint scent of industrial disinfectant and pee that was specific to public bathrooms everywhere.

Not exactly where Caitlin Snow had probably pictured getting ready for her wedding.

"This is all pretty fast isn't it?" she said quietly.

"It's okay," Caitlin said, pawing through her purse. "I'm marrying Ronnie. I've wanted that for - so long. Dresses and flowers and things, those don't matter. What matters is Ronnie."

"What was the plan before? Was it going to be big?"

"Oh, not a circus. God, no." She found a lipstick and uncapped it. The cap spurted out of her fingers and clattered in the sink. "But a few friends, and my parents were going to be there, of course. Mom and Dad were going to fly out here a week ahead to spend some time with us."

"That sounds lovely."

"Mom was going to do my hair - she runs the costume shop of a theater company in New York, so she's done hair and makeup and things like that for years. And she already made my dress."

"She made your dress?"

"Kind of - it was hers. She, uh, she re-cut it for me, so it would be a little more up-to-date. It has this sweetheart neckline - " she ran her finger over her chest, describing the line, " - and a mermaid tail skirt. And it's sort of - wrapped and pinned and fluffy."

"It sounds beautiful." Clarissa took the brush from the side of the sink (rusted and a little grimy, as if the park staff hadn't been doing their job) ran a little water over it, shook it out, and started brushing gently, trying to smooth down the flyaways.

Caitlin nodded.

"What about jewelry? What did you plan to wear?"

"My grandmother's pearls. She wore them, and my mother wore them, and I was going to - "

"Oh, my god," Iris murmured. "Caitlin. That's amazing."

She nodded again. "I can still give them to my daughter. Even if I didn't - "

Clarissa asked, "Where are those things now?"

"My closet," Caitlin said in a tiny voice. "In a garment bag. Everything together. Shoes too. I couldn't - I couldn't give them back."

"Here in the city?"

"All the way across it."

"Has Barry ever been to your place?"

Caitlin's eyes widened. "I can't. We've got like five minutes!"

Clarissa took her shoulders in a light grip. "This is not just any dress, or any set of jewelry. They're important to you, yes?"

"Not more important than Ronnie."

"Nobody's asking you to choose. Yes, Ronnie's all hopped up to get it done, but nobody's chasing him now. You have all the time in the world. Now, I'll ask again. Are they important to you?"

Caitlin closed her eyes and nodded.

"You've waited a year. Half an hour, give or take, is not going to be that much more. Today is your wedding day and these things are important and you are going to have them. Yes?"

"Yes," Caitlin said. _"Yes._"

Clarissa smiled. "Iris, what could you do with a curling iron, if you had one?"

Iris's eyes lit. "Ohhh, what couldn't I do. But I'll need hairspray too."

Clarissa nodded and pulled a battered notebook out of her purse. She scribbled notes, repeating them aloud for Caitlin's benefit. "Garment bag, (closet), curling iron, hairspray (bathroom) - "

"Makeup," Caitlin said. "I need my makeup. This is the wrong color lipstick for that dress."

"Housekey?"

Caitlin handed it over.

"Okay. Iris, decide what you're going to do with her hair. Caitlin, call your mother."

Caitlin's eyes widened again. "My parents don't know about Ronnie being back. I didn't know how to tell them."

"Well, then, figure out a way fast. Because they're important, too, and they deserve to be at your wedding, one way or another."

Caitlin fumbled her phone out of her purse and stared at it.

"I'll be back," Clarissa promised. She headed out.

Martin met her a few steps outside the door. "Is she almost ready?"

"You'll have to tell Ronnie to cool his jets," she said pleasantly. "Barry!" She waved at him, and he whooshed from the knot of men to Martin's side. Unnecessary, since it was a distance of about fifty feet, but that was twenty-something superheroes for you. "I need an errand run. Or more accurately, Caitlin does."

"An errand," Martin said disbelievingly.

"She needs a few things from her place." She handed over the list and the key.

Barry looked at the list. "Really?"

Iris poked her head out of the bathroom. "Caitlin says there's a clip in her bathroom that she'd like to put in her hair."

Barry said, "Seriously? Does she really need all this?"

Iris stared him down. "It's in a basket on the top of her toilet tank. It's still in the package. You'll be able to find it."

He withered. Clarissa didn't have all the details, but apparently young Barry was in trouble deep with Iris for not telling her about his speed until that morning. And he hadn't told her so much as she'd found out by accident.

"Okay," he said meekly. "Be right back." He whooshed away.

"How long is this going to take?" Martin complained.

"She wants her dress. And her makeup."

"What! Clarissa, don't be ridiculous. We hardly have a permit for an impromptu outdoor wedding, all right? We've already had to lie to the park staff once and besides, she looked perfectly fine in what she was wearing."

Clarissa put her hand to his face. "Martin," she said adoringly. "Love of my life. Man with whom I've chosen to spend decades with already."

"Oh, my god," he said, recognizing his own imminent defeat.

_"Caitlin is getting her wedding dress."_

He sighed. "I'll go tell Ronald."

"Good. And come up with a better lie for the park staff than 'we were just going to play some basketball.'"

"How did you - ?"

"Because they're all hanging around the basketball court and Cisco just tried to slam dunk a frisbee."

* * *

In the end, it took forty-five minutes, two more Barry-runs across the city for things that had been forgotten, and one-and-a-half games of frisbee basketball, including arguing about the rules, but finally Caitlin was ready.

Clarissa stood off to one side, holding Caitlin's phone up so her parents could see the action. Iris held her own phone, with a woman named Felicity from Starling City sniffling on the other end.

Technology, she thought wonderingly. She and Martin had had to settle for calling her parents together from Vegas. Oh, had they been hungover. But the ensuing decades, even with the tragedy and drama of the past year or so, had been worth it.

Ronnie repeated his vows in a shaky voice, as if he was just realizing what he'd impulsively decided to do today. Caitlin's voice was steadier, but her eyes sparkled with tears. Clarissa was glad they'd sent Barry back for the waterproof mascara, even if the speedster had whined like a toddler about it.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife," Martin said.

Ronnie and Caitlin kissed, ecstatically, tenderly, just the kind of first kiss you should give your spouse. When they pulled apart, Caitlin looked over her new husband's shoulder at Clarissa, smiled, and mouthed, _Thank you._

Clarissa smiled back, wiping away tears with her free hand, and mouthed back, _My pleasure._

FINIS


End file.
